SPEECH 



BY THE 



HON. ELIHU ROOT, 



Secretary of War, 



AT 



Canton, Otiio, 



OCTOBER 24, rpoo. 



SPKECH 



BY THE 



HON. ELIHU ROOT, 



Secretary of War, 



AT 



Canton, Otiio, 



OCTOBER 24, 1900. 



3J i."!^ 

1 : .ia '^7 






Fellow Citizens : 

A heavy burden of proof rests upon those who ask the 
American people to reject the further services of the Republi- 
can Administration. Under that Administration the legiti- 
mate objects of government have been attained to a degree 
which challenges comparison with the happiest periods in 
the life of any nation in any age. Never in human history 
anywhere on earth have security for life and property, un- 
fettered opportunity for intelligence and energy, individual 
freedom, and the self-respect of manhood, attained a higher 
level than now marks the condition of this fortunate 
Republic. 

The material results of wise and successful government 
are visible on every hand. We never before have had so 
many million people owning their own homes unencumbered, 
so many million people with accumulated earnings in savings 
banks, such universal employment of labor at such good 
wages, such abundant production from farm and factory and 
workshop of all material things which meet the necessities 
and contribute to the comfort and pleasure of life. The 
markets for our products are extending over the whole earth. 
Abundant home capital is obtainable at lower rates of 
interest than were ever known before for the productive 
enterprise which employs labor and creates wealth. We are 
rapidly paying our debts to Europe for the money borrowed 
to build our railroads and develop our country, so that the 
constant drain upon our earnings for the payment of interest 
abroad is ceasing; and we are lending money to Europe, so 
that the current of annual payments is setting in our 
direction. There never was in this world a greater body of 
people so well fed, well clothed and well housed. 

Above and beyond all these material things are universal 
opportunities for education and the general exercise and 
training of intelligence. The newspaper, the magazine and 
the book find their way into the humblest home. The doors of 
our free schools are open to every child, and it is rare indeed 
that poverty withholds their access. The patriotism of the 
rich is devoting millions to the building up of colleges, tech- 
nical schools and great universities, in which the poorest 
boy can rise to the loftiest heights of learning and intellectual 
power. Freedom of thought, freedorn of speech and the con- 
stant consideration and discussion of political problems are 
training and exercising the whole people to a degree of com- 
petency for self-government never before equaled. The aris - 



tocracy of America is the aristocracy of achievement. It is 
with intellectual and moral qualities that our people achieve 
fame and fortune. The pathway to the highest distinction is 
open to every boy who thumbs his primer in the common 
school. Inherited wealth is a hindrance rather than an aid in 
the race of life. Call the roll of those whom the nation has 
honored — the President and his cabinet, the great judges, the 
great senators, the great congressmen, the great governors — 
call the roll of the men whose great fortunes are the causes 
of envy and disparagement, and among them all you will find 
that the man who cannot look back upon a youth of privation 
and struggle, with no capital but his own energy and ambition, 
is the exception. The softening and ennobling influences of 
charity and religion find sway in every community. Hos- 
pitals and asylums and libraries and schools and churches 
grow apace with homes and manufactories, and the swift re- 
sponse to every appeal of humanity for the relief of misfortune 
answers to the quickened activity of industrial enterprise. 

Of course this happy condition has not been created by 
government, but without good government it could not have 
been created. Without sound governmental policy and wise 
and efficient governmental administration, the blessings 
which we have enumerated would have been impossible. 
Government does not make crops grow, or weave cloth, or 
mould iron ; but wise government opens the markets for 
crops and for cloth and for iron, and for the want of it you 
and I have seen corn burned for fuel in the valley of the 
Mississippi, cloth unsalable gathering dust in the warehouses 
of New England, ores unquarried and furnaces unfired among 
the hills of Pennsylvania and Alabama, and the productive 
power of millions of American workingmen idle and helpless. 
Government does not make enterprise; but wise government 
evokes enterprise by the certainty of reward for its activity. 
Government does not invest capital; but wise government 
gives to capital that confidence in security for its investment 
which draws it from the hiding places of distrust and trans- 
mutes it into the plant and material out of which labor cre- 
ates prosperity. Government does not give employment to 
labor, but wise government creates the conditions under 
which industrial activity employs labor. Prosperity does not 
come by chance. History is full of examples of earth's fair- 
est regions nourishing only poverty, misery and degradation, 
because of the folly and incompetency or corruption of gov- 
ernment. We are not without illustrations in our own land, 
of the ruin which can be wrought by unwise government and 
the attempts of men in power to apply crude and impracti- 



cable theories to the complicated and delicate machinery of 
industrial life. Under bad government no fertility of soil, 
no thrift or industry of population, can bring prosperity to a 
people. Security, opportunity, confidence, activity of trade 
and labor, are the fruits of good government alone. All 
these the American people secured for themselves when in 
the election of 1896 th-ey committed the powers of govern- 
ment to the hands of President McKinley and a Republican 
Congress. 

There is another field in which the decision of 1896 has 
justified itself. I am sure no really patriotic American who 
loves his country more than he desires office can have failed 
to be gratified by a certain competency and effectiveness in 
President McKinley's dealings with other powers. No Admin- 
istration during this generation at least has been confronted 
with such a succession of difficult undertakings outside of our 
own country. There may be just criticism in details, and 
there certainly has been much that was unjust, but what are 
the results? 

In April, 1898, Spain had an army of 400,000 veteran 
ttoops, and a navy which in numbers and armament appeared 
and was generally believed to be at least equal to ours. The 
whole continent of Europe anticipated that Spain would 
hold the land and sweep the seas, blockade our ports, 
and frustrate our arms until European intervention should 
paralyze our superior ultimate resources. But whose ships 
were ready and staunch and sound ? Whose ammunition 
was honest and effective? Whose soldiers and sailors were 
trained? Who swept the seas ? Whose flag floats over Santi- 
ago and San Juan and* Havana and Manila ? Find if you can 
anywhere in history so great results secured against so consid- 
erable a foe by force of arms on land and sea in so brief 
a time, and with so small a loss of life. 

The attack of the Tagalog insurgents upon our troops at 
•Manila, in February, 1899, required the President, under the 
authority of Congress, to raise and equip and train an army, 
and transport it half way round the world for the defence of 
American sovereignty againgt the force of arms. When that 
army arrived in the fall of last year, a Tagalog sympathizer 
declared exultingly that we held no more territory in the 
Philippines than a bicycle rider could surround in a single 
day. Within three months the insurgent army and the insur- 
gent government ceased to exist, and we hold all the islands 
which were subject to Spanish rule without opposition, save 
from fugitive bands, half guerrilla and half bandit, who are 
shooting our men from ambush, and blackmailing and pillag- 



6 

ing and murdering their own countrymen until that happy 
day when, their prayers maybe answered by the election of 
an American President who will yield American sovereignty 
to savage force and deliver the peaceful and unresisting peo- 
ple of the Philippines and the wealth and commerce of Manila 
over to their cruel and bloody domination. 

When the Democratic Convention met at Kansas City in 
July last, all Europe believed that dreadful massacre had 
swept into oblivion all the ministers and legations of the 
civilized world in Peking. The Admirals of the European 
powers at Taku had agreed upon 60,000 troops as the number 
necessary to march to Peking, and they were awaiting the 
slow collection of that force from the four quarters of the 
globe. London had arranged a memorial service in memory 
of her dead. A frightful war of retribution, the destruction 
of the dynasty, the removal of all restraint of law over 400,- 
000,000 of people, the partition of China, the destruction of 
our markets and our trade seemed inevitable; but American 
diplomacy opened the sealed gates of the Tartar City and 
revealed to the world the representatives of civilization liv- 
ing, defending themselves against almost overwhelming 
hordes, under constant fire of shot and shell, with ammuni- 
tion and food nearly gone, hoping, but almost despairing, foi 
the relief which never would have come but for American 
faith and American persistency. Then American soldiers and 
American sailors pressed for rescue, for immediate movement, 
and 17,000 men made the march and did the work of the 
60,000, and Peking fell and the legations were saved and the 
world rejoiced. x\nd now the legations saved, we continu- 
ally press for peace and reasonableness and justice. I 
think we may safely say that during all this trying time in 
China not one act of wrong, or injustice, and not one 
moment's faltering in the assertion of American rights mars 
our record. 

All this and many other less conspicuous and striking thingi 
done for the benefit and honor of our country have not hap- 
pened by chance. High credit, honest expenditure, sound 
material, ships in readiness, gun^ and ammunition effective, 
sailors and soldiers well armed, equipped, trained and disci- 
plined, consistent and effective diplomacy, prompt and de- 
cisive action, prosperity and order at home, respect and 
honor abroad are the infallible proofs of a strong, wise, safe 
and honest Administration. It is easy to carp and criticise. 
It is easy to point to failures of government to reach the ideal 
standard of perfection, but as compared with all the govern- 
ments there are or ever have been in this imperfect and erring 



world, the Administration now drawing to a close should 
awaken the satisfaction and pride of the American people to 
whom it renders its account. 

And has not our President so borne himself in his great of- 
fice that his virtues plead trumpet-tongued ? Who shall esti- 
mate the value to American character of having in this place 
of highest honor and power this man of blameless life, of 
simple and unostentatious piety, whose character is fairly 
resplendent with the beauty of pure and unselfish domestic 
virtues? How ripe is the wisdom gained from his long ex- 
perience in faithful and distinguished public service as Con- 
gressman, as leader of the House, as Governor and as Presi- 
dent. What a perpetual testimony before all the world of the 
living truth of popular government is his ever Anxious de- 
votion to the people's will — a devotion in which he stands by 
Lincoln's side, subject, as was Lincoln, to the sneers of the 
thoughtless, but certain, as was Lincoln, to win the ultimate 
meed of praise that always waits on loyalty to great ideals. 

The logic of events has proved that the American people 
were right when they rejected Mr. Bryan and the theories of 
his false democracy in 1896. The people are confirmed in 
their judgment, and great numbers who honestly believed 
that Bryan was right then have come to a clearer vision in the 
light of experience and follow him no longer. 

Bryan and his associate leaders, who would make up his 
Administration if he were elected, are not convinced. They 
do not accept the verdict of '96. They intend now, as they 
intended then, to put this country on a silver basis by the 
free and unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of sixteen to 
one; to sacrifice our national honor and credit, and substitute 
in the wages of labor, and the payment of honest debts, the 
fifty-cent dollar in place of the dollar worth one hundred 
cents the world over, under which all our prosperity has been 
attained. They intend now, as they intended then, to destroy 
the protective tariff, which they declare to be unconsti- 
tutional, and subject our manufacturing industries again to 
the fate which befell them under the Wilson tariff. They in- 
tend now, as they intended then, to deprive of power that 
great bulwark of constitutional liberty, the federal judiciary. 
They seek now, as they sought then, to excite animosi- 
ties and foment discord among the people; to deceive 
by false promises of the demagogue, and to profit themselves 
by creating a warfare of class against class. The issues of 
1896 remain open, avowed, insisted upon. 

They have learned nothing, and they have abandoned 
nothing, but they have despaired of securing from the Ameri- 



8 

can people a judgment upon those issues reversing the deci- 
sion of '96, and they have invented a new issue which 
they call *' imperialism," and upon this issue they ask the 
people to give them the power to do all that the people re- 
fused in 1896 to let them do. ''This," says the Kansas City 
platform, "we regard as the paramount issue of the cam- 
paign." To this Mr. Bryan practically confined himself in 
his speech of acceptance. 

What is the meaning of paramount issue ? What becomes 
of other issues when one is paramount? We should naturally 
suppose that to treat one particular issue as paramount in- 
volved leaving all other questions in abeyance and undeter- 
mined, to be taken up and decided at some future time when 
the one all-important and burning question has been disposed 
of. Is that what Mr. Bryan means ? Does he mean to leave 
the other issues of his party in abeyance, awaiting future de- 
cision ? Does he declare — nay, does he leave the possibility 
of inference that his party, if put into power at the coming 
election, will not act upon the silver question, will not act 
on the tariff question, will not act on the judiciary question ? 
No! He proposes to act, and he will act, if elected, and a 
Democratic Congress will act, if elected, to reverse the 
judgment of '96 upon every issue then before the people. • 
Imperialism is not paramount enough ior him to abandon any- 
thing. It is not paramount for him. It is paramount only for 
those who were opposed to him in 1896, and the effect of its 
being paramount is merely that the sound money men, the 
protective tariff men, the law and order men of 1896 are to 
abandon their principles and their convictions, and surrender 
upon every issue of the Democratic platform of 1896. 

What is this issue which is so important to all Mr. Bryan's 
late opponents, and so unimportant to him? 

Imperialism! The word has a familiar sound. The cry 
is one of the cheapest and most threadbare of the dema- 
gogue's stock, always certain to produce a sensation among 
a people alert for the protection of their liberties. Jeffer- 
son was denounced as an imperialist j Lincoln was denounced 
as an imperialist; Grant was denounced as an imperialist; 
and as to all three of these great and liberty-loving men the 
party of opposition made the country resound with loud 
campaign outcries that they were about to strangle the liber- 
ties of the country by military force, just as they are. now 
clamoring against President McKinley. Is there any more 
in the cry now than there was in the days of Jefferson, of 
Lincoln and of Grant ? Is the character of our institutions 
really about to be changed, or are our liberties really in 



danger? Is the issue substantial, or is it but the damagogue's 
cry? 

The charge is that President McKinley has been guilty of 
something called imperialism, in his treatment of the people 
of the Philippine Islands. Something so foreign to the char- 
acter of our institutions and so dangerous to our liberties 
that it requires the American people to ignore the wisdom 
and efficiency of his Administration at home and abroad in 
other respects — to reject now and hereafter the services which 
have been so beneficial to them in the past and to put into 
power Mr. Bryan and his associates, with full warrant to 
accomplish all the purposes they profess, which the majority 
of the people believe will be so fatal to the honor, the credit 
and the prosperity of our country. 

What has President McKinley done in the Philippines? 

On the 6th of February, 1899, the Senate of the United 
States approved the Treaty of Peace with Spain. By the 
Third Article of that treaty Spain ceded to the United States 
the archipelago known as the Philippine Islands; the United 
States agreed to pay Spain twenty million dollars ; and in the 
Ninth Article the treaty provided that the civil rights and 
political status of the native inhabitants of the territory ceded 
to the United States should be determined by the Congress. 

The examination of Mr. Bryan's charge of imperialism 
may commence with this treaty, because it was confirmed by 
the Senate in a large measure by Democratic votes, with the 
earnest and active support and advocacy of Mr. Bryan. 

Upon the advisability, the wisdom and validity of that 
treaty both the candidates for the Presidency, therefore, are 
agreed ; and in considering the charge made by Mr. Bryan 
against President McKinley we start with the proposition 
that the treaty which vested in the United States the 
sovereignty over the Philippine Islands and committed the 
rights and political status of its inhabitants to the determi- 
nation of the Congress of the United States was right. 

On the fourth of February, two days before the Senate 
approved the treaty, an army of Tagalogs, a tribe inhabit- 
ing the central part of Luzon, under the leadership of 
Aguinaldo, a Chinese half-breed, attacked, in vastly superior 
numbers, our little army in the possession of Manila, and 
after a desperate and bloody fight, was repulsed in every 
direction. The treaty was confirmed by the Senate witji the 
full knowledge of that attack. On the 2d of March, 'both 
Houses of Congress, by an almost unanimous vote, appro- 
priated twenty millions of dollars, which the treaty provided 
to be paid to Spain on the cession of the Philippines ; and on 



lO 

the same day, in view of this hostile attack, Congress, by a 
vote which had the assent and concurrence of the leaders of 
the Democratic party in both Houses, authorized the Presi- 
dent to increase the Regular Army from 27,500 men to 65,000, 
and to raise and equip 35,000 volunteers. 

What President McKinley has done in the Philippines has 
been to defend and assert the sovereignty of the United 
States thus acquired with the assent of both parties and of 
both candidates for the Presidency, with the means thus 
placed in his hands by Congress. What is charged against 
him is that he did not yield or procure Congress to authorize 
him to yield the sovereignty of the United States acquired 
by the cession of Spain with the assent of both parties, to 
the force of those armed Tagalogs whose hands were red 
with the blood of American soldiers ; place in their hands 
the government of the Philippine Islands, lower the American 
flag upon the walls of Manila and hurry away with our 
wounded and our dead from the bay made glorious by 
Dewey's victory. 

The first specification under the charge is that it was 
unjust to the Filipinos not to do this. Of course it was im- 
possible to do it. Self-respect forbade it, national honor 
forbade it; the whole world would have contemned and 
despised us if we had done it; the whole country would 
have risen in indignant protest against any President who 
dared to do it. But I will pas " all that and treat the 
question as if it had been possible. What made it requisite 
as an act of justice that the government of the Philippines 
should be placed in the hands of Aguinaldo and his asso- 
ciates ? Was there any promise or agreement or alliance 
that required it? No. This Government not only never 
authorized it, but the President expressly forbade anything 
of the kind. Admiral Dewey, who commanded our Naval 
forces, says there was nothing of the kind. General Ander- 
son and General Merritt, who commanded the land forces, 
say there was nothing of the kind. True, our Democratic 
friends will not believe them. No length of honorable 
career, no splendid record of American citizenship, in their 
minds, entitles the American officer to be believed who 
testifies in favor of the Administration against Aguinaldo. 
Perh|,ps they will believe a Tagalog witness. 

We have in our possession an original document, signed by 
Mabini, the president of Aguinaldo's cabinet, his chief ad- 
viser, and the brains of the insurrection. It is a paper of in- 



II 

structions to a commissioner sent upon a secret mission by 
the insurgent government, dated the 4th of January, 1899, 
and among its statements of fact for the commissioner's 
guidance, is found the following : 

'*The chief of the Philippine people has not made any 
agreement with the Government of the United States, 
but inspired by the same idea of destroying the 
sovereignty of Spain in these Islands, they have mu- 
tually assisted each other". 

Though they believe not Moses and the Prophets, perhaps 
they will believe that. 

Is there anything in the circumstances of the assistance 
which we have received from these men which entitles them 
to the reward of the sovereignty of the Philippines? Cer- 
tainly not. When Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet and the 
City of Manila lay helpless under his guns, waiting only for 
our troops to come in and take possession, the rule of Spain 
in the Philippines received its death blow. There was no in- 
surrection then in the Philippine Islands. The sovereignty 
and title of Spain stood unquestioned by the people of the Phil- 
ippine Islands or by any one else on earth. There had been an 
insurrection led by Aguinaldo, but that had been terminated 
in the previous December by an agreement called the Treaty 
of Biac-na-Bato, under which Aguinaldo and his associates 
were bought off by the payment of ;^4oo,ooo, and the promise 
of ^400,000 more on the performance of certain specified 
conditions which included their leaving the country. That 
insurrection had not been a struggle for independence, and 
the people of the Philippine Islands had never in their history 
demanded or sought independence from Spain, or the sur- 
render of Spanish sovereignty. When Aguinaldo and his as- 
sociates were brought from China to the Philippines by Ad- 
miral Dewey some weeks after the destruction of the Spanish 
fleet, they were but a band of adventurers, whose assistance 
was availed of as is that of the disaffected inhabitants of any 
invaded country, upon no terms conditions or implied obli- 
gations, other than those of reasonable reward for such ser- 
vices as they might render. 

To make the situation perfectly clear, let me read to you 
from the treaty of Biac-na-Bato, which terminated the insur- 
rection in December, 1897 : 

"1. Don Emilio Aguinaldo in his quality as Supreme 
Leader of those in the Island of Luzon . now waging 
open hostilities against their legitimate government 



12 

and Don Baldomero Aguinaldo and Don Mariano 
Llanera who also exercise important commands in the 
forces mentioned, are to cease their hostile attitude, 
surrender their arms that they are using against their 
fatherland, and are to surrender to the legitimate 
authorities claiming their rights as Spanish Filipino citi- 
zens which they desire to preserve. As a consequence of 
this surrender they obligate themselves to cause the 
surrender of such individuals as actually follow them 
and those who recognize them as leaders and obey 
their orders." 

Let me read from the program formally prepared and 
signed for the carrying out of this treaty : 

'^25th December. Departure of Don Emilio Agui- 
naldo and his companions with Don Pedro A. Paterno 
and Don Miguel Primo de Rivera for Lingayan, where 
the Spanish government will have a merchant steamer 
to take them to Hong Kong, the gentlemen going 
aboard may take their revolvers and the two rifles asked 
for by Don Emilio Aguinaldo. On the departure of 
these gentlemen from Biac-na-Bato the Spanish Gov- 
ernment will give, by Don Pedro A. Paterno to Balde- 
mero Aguinaldo a letter payable to the order of the 
Spanish-Filipino Bank upon some bank in Hong Kong 
for the sum of ^400,000, the cost of exchange being 
charged to the Spanish government," &c., &c., &c. 

Nothing can be more preposterous than the proposition that 
these men were entitled to receive from us sovereignty over 
the entire country which we were invading. As well the 
friendly Indians, who have helped us in our Indian wars, might 
have claimed the sovereignty of the West. They knew that 
we v/ere incurring no such obligation, and they expected no 
yucli reward. Their plan was to obtain from us arms and 
ammunition and protection while they collected an army : to 
use us to capture Manila, and then to take it from us by force 
of arms. In their vainglorious and half-savage estimate of their 
powtrs they believed they could do this. They believed they 
could drive us into the sea when the lime came, and their 
attack upon our troops at Manila on the 4lh of February, 1899, 
was in pursuance of a deliberate purpose and long prepara- 
tion. Their plan was fully formed before they left China, 
and it was with truly Oriental treachery in their hearts that 
they accepted the hospitality and the assistance of our Navy. 

At a meeting held in Hongkong on the 4th of May, 1898, 



^3 

four days after the battle of Manila Bay, a meeting of the 
band was held to determine upon going to Manila with 
Dewey, and Agoncillo stated the proposition in these words : 

''There will be no better occasion than the present 
for the expeditionary forces to land on those islands 
and to arm themselves at the expense of the Americans 
and assure the attainment of our legitimate aspirations 
against those very people. 

''The Filipino people, unprovided with arms, will.be 
the victim of the demands and exactions of the 
United States, but provided with arms will be able to 
oppose themselves to them and struggle for their inde- 
pendence, in which consists the true happiness of the 
Filipinos." 

Agoncillo's proposition was unanimously approved, and 
the minutes of the meeting are in our possession, signed by 
the conspirators, with Aguinaldo's name at the head. Trans- 
ported by us to Luzon, furnished with arms and ammunition 
by us, they collected and organized an army about the walls 
of Manila, of Tagalogs and discharged Spanish soldiers and 
all the bandits and pirates of those coasts, until they felt 
strong enough to execute their purpose. 

On the 9th of January, twenty-seven days before the treaty 
was confirmed, Aguinaldo issued his order to prepare for the 
attack. 

"Malolos, 9th of January, 1899. 

"Instructions to the Brave Soldiers of Sandatahan of 
Manila. 



"Article 2. All of the chiefs and Filipino brothers should 
be ready and courageous for the combat and should take ad- 
vantage of the opportunity to study well the situation of the 
American outposts and headquarters. Observing especially 
secret places where they can approach and surprise the enemy. 

"Article 3. The chief of those who go to attack the bar- 
racks should send in first four men with a good present for 
the American commander. Immediately after will follow 
four others who will make a pretense of looking for the same 
officer for some reason, and a larger group shall be concealed 
in the corners or houses in order to aid the other groups at 
the first signal. This, wherever it is possible, at the moment 
of attack. 

"Article 4. They should not prior to the attack look at the 
Americans in a threatening manner. To the contrary, the 



14 

attack on the barracks by the Sandatahan should be a com- 
plete surprise and with decision and courage. One should 
go alone in advance in order to kill the sentinel. 

T* ^ ••* ^ ^ *!* "I* ^ "?• "P 

''Article 7. All Filipinos, real defenders of their country, 
should live on the alert to assist simultaneously the inside 
attack at the very moment that they note the first movement 
in whatever barrio or suburb, having assurance that all the 
troops that surround Manila will proceed without delay to 
force the enemy's line and unite themselves with their brothers 
in the city. 

!|C *5* 'K 'i^'l* "n V 'I* •!• "l^ 

** Emilio Aguinaldo." 
Of course our forces were ignorant then of the order and 
of the purpose, but they observed all over Manila Filipinos 
packing their goods and gathering their families and quietly 
slipping away from the city. They left by the thousands, 
and they left because they had notice of the proposed attack. 
One notification, signed by Aguinaldo, has fallen into our 
hands. It is a letter to a friend in Manila, dated on the 7th 
of January, 1899, four weeks before the attack, and in it 
he says : 

**My Dear Don Benito : 

*'I beg you to leave Manila with your family and to 
come here to Malolos, but not because I wish to 
frighten you — I merely wish to warn you for your 
satisfaction, although it is not yet the day nr thp 
week." 

The day was not then, but it came on the 4th of February 
when a body of Filipino troops marched under cover of the 
night, swiftly and silently, through our- lines, regardless of 
the sentry's challenge, and, when he fired, volleys of mus- 
ketry and roar of cannon upon every side commenced the 
proposed destruction of ojur a^my. 

The bodies of our men who fell during that dreadful night 
and the days of conflict which followed have been brought 
back reverently across the Pacific and laid in honored graves 
among their countrymen. But, not yet — not yet has the soil 
stained by t4ieir blood been surrendered to their slayers. 
Not yet has the treacherous and wicked attack, which they 
died to defeat, been turned into victory by the act of an 
American President. 



15 

But, we are told that, irrespective of agreements, irrespec- 
tive of anything said or done by the Filipino leaders, or by 
ourselves, we ought to transfer to them sovereignty over the 
Philippine Islands, because government derives its just powers 
from the consent of the governed, and our maintenance of 
sovereignty is a violation of that great principle of the Dec- 
laration of Independence. 

Nothing can be more misleading than a principle misapplied. 
Countless crimes have been committed by men quoting texts 
of Scripture or maxims of political philosophy wrested from 
their true context and meaning. The doctrine that govern- 
ment derives its just powers from the consent of the governed 
was applicable to the conditions for which Jefferson wrote it, 
and to the people to whom he applied it. It is true where- 
ever a people exists capable and willing to maintain just 
government, and to make free, intelligent and efficacious de- 
cision as to who shall govern. But Jefferson did not apply 
it to Louisiana. He wrote to Gallatin that the people of 
Louisiana were as incapable of self-government as children, 
and he governed them without their consent. Lincoln did 
not apply it to the South, and the great struggle of the Civil 
War was a solemn assertion by the American people that there 
are other principles of law and liberty which limit the appli- 
cation of the doctrine of consent. Government does not de- 
pend upon consent. The immutable laws of justice and hu- 
manity require that people shall have government, that the 
weak shall be protected, that cruelty and lust shall be re- 
strained, whether there be consent or not. 

When I consider the myriads of human ifcings who have 
lived in subjection to the rule of force, ignorant of any other 
lot, knowing life only as the beast of the field knows it, with- 
out the seeds of progress, without initiative or capacity 
to rise, submissive to injustice and cruelty and perpetual ig- 
norance and brutishness, I cannot believe that, for the ex- 
ternal forces of civilization, to replace brutal and oppressive 
government, with which such a people in ignorance are 
content, by ordered liberty ajjfcindividual freedom and a 
rule that shall start and lead t^^Hlong the path of political 
and social progress, is a violation of the principle of Jeffer- 
sor, or false to the highest dictates of liberty and humanity. 

The true question in the Philippines was, whether the 
withdrawal of the Spanish power which we had destroyed left 
a people capable of establishing and maintaining a free con- 
stitutional government ; whether the humble and peaceable 
inhabitants, who constituted the great mass of the popula- 



i6 

tion, were competent to protect themselves ; whether the 
wealth and commerce of Manila, the merchants from all 
the nations of Europe who were gathered there, the producers 
of hemp and tobacco and rice, would be protected by a rule 
of law and order and justice, or whether, on the other hand^ 
the people, incapable of governing themselves, would become 
the subjects of a dictatorship, or the prey of bloody discord. 
Let me read you what high authority declares as the universal 
lesson of history regarding the people of countries situated 
as are these islands when left to themselves. In a speech on 
the annexation of San Domingo, in the Senate of the United 
States on the nth of January, 187 1, my friend Mr. Schurz, 
who now charges that it was cruel injustice not to leave the 
Filipinos togovern themselves without control or guidance said: 

^*Read that history, read that of all other tropical 
countries, and then show me a single instance of the 
successful establishment and peaceable maintenance, 
for a respectable period, of republican institutions, 
based upon popular self-government, under a tropical 
sun. To show me one^, do not confine your search to 
the West Indies; look for it anywhere else on the face 
of the globe in tropical latitudes. I challenge Sena- 
tors to point their fingers to a single one. There is 
none, sir ! * * * 

<( * * jp The tropical sun inflames the imagination to 
inordinate activity and deyelo^s the government of 
the passions. The consequences are natural, and there 
is a tendM|cy to govern by force instead of by argu- 
ment ; revolutions are of chronic occurrence, like vol- 
canic outbreaks, and you will find political life con- 
tinually oscillating between two extremes — liberty, 
which there means anarchy, and order, which there 
means despotism." 

The testimony is absolutely overwhelming that the people 
inhabiting the Philippine archipelago are incapable of self- 
government, and that the J|^khere described would have be- 
fallen these islands of th^^Bpics had American sovereignty 
been withdrawn. There i^^o Philippine people. The hun- 
dreds of islands which compose the archipelago are inhabited 
by more than eighty difi'erent tribes, speaking more than 
sixty difi'erent languages. They have no common medium of 
communication, and they never had a government except the 
arbitrary rule of Spain. Most of them have not the first 
conception of what self-government means, or the first quali- 
fication for its exercise. Many of them have the capacity to 
learn, but they have never learned. 



17 
The first Philippine Commission said of them : 

"Should our power by any fatality be withdrawn, the 
commission believe that the government of the 
Philippines would speedily lapse into anarchy, which 
would excuse, if it did not necessitate, the intervention 
of other powers and the eventual division of the islands 
among them. Only through American occupation, 
therefore, is the idea of a free, self-governing and 
united Philippine commonwealth at all conceivable. 
And the indispensable need, from the Filipino point 
of view, of maintaining American sovereignty over the 
archipelago is recognized by all intelligent Filipinos, 
and even by those insurgents who desire an American 
protectorate. The latter, it is true, would take the 
revenues and leave us the responsibilities. Nevertheless 
they recognize the indubitable fact that the Filipinos 
cannot stand alone. Thus the welfare of the Filipinos 
coincides with the dictates of national honor in for- 
bidding our abandonment of the archipelago. We can- 
not, from any point of view, escape the responsibilities 
of government which our sovereignty entails ; and the 
commission is strongly persuaded that the performance 
of our national duty will prove the greatest blessing to 
the peoples of the Philippine Islands." 

This was the testimony of President Schurman, of Cornell ; 
of Professor Worcester, of Michigan; of that old-time Demo- 
crat Charles Denby, our former Minister to China, and of 
Admiral George Dewey. 

The present Philippine Commission says : 

'' A change of policy by turning the islands over to 
the coterie of Tagalog politicians will blight their fair 
prospects of enormous improvement, drive out capital, 
make life and property — secular and religious — most 
insecure, banish by fear of cruel proscription a con- 
siderable body, of conservative Filipino people, who 
had aided Americans iiMKell- founded belief that theii 
people are not now fi^V^ self-government, and re- 
introduce the same oppression and corruption which 
existed in all provinces under the Malolos insurgent 
government during the eight months of its control. 
The result will be factional strife between jealous lead- 
ers, chaos and anarchy, and will require and justify 
active intervention of our government or some other. ' ' 

This is the testimony of William H. Taft, of Ohio; Luke E. 



Wright, of Tennessee; Henry C. Ide, of Vermont; Professor 
Bernard Moses, of the University of California, and Professor 
Worcester, of Michigan. All of these commissioners were 
sent to the Philippine Islands to learn the truth, and to in- 
form the President and Congress of the United States for the 
performance of their duty. 

The President was not in the Philippine Islands. The 
Congress was not in the Philippine Islands. They were 
obliged to proceed upon evidence. And find if you can, 
anywhere in this land, a body of men whose conclusions are 
more entitled to credit and constitute a safer basis of official 
action than these. The year of Tagalog domination in 
Luzon was marked by the worst evils of semi-civilized mis- 
government. The first Philippine Commission said of it : 

'' Throughout the archipelago at large there was 
trouble only at those points to which armed Tagalogs 
had been sent in considerable numbers. In general, 
such machinery of 'government' as existed served 
only for plundering the people under the pretext of 
levying ^ war contributions,' while many of the in- 
surgent officials were rapidly accumulating wealth. 
The administration of justice was paralyzed and 
crime of all sorts was rampant. Might was the only 
law. Never in the worst days of Spanish misrule had 
the people been so overtaxed or so badly governed. 
In many provinces there was absolute anarchy, and 
from all sides came petitions for protection and help, 
which we were unable to give." 

Pio del Pilar, Aguinaldo's most active General, was the 
most notorious bandit in the Philippines. The orders for a 
combined attack and rising within the city of Manila on the 
15th of February, ten days after the Senate confirmed the 
treaty, contained these directions: 

"First. You will so dispose that at 8 o'clock at 
night the individuals of the territorial militia, at 
your order, will be found united in all the streets of 
San Pedro, armed with their bolos and revolvers and 
guns and ammunition if convenient. 

'* Second. Philippine families only will be re- 
spected; they should not be molested, but all other 
individuals, of whatever race they may be, will be ex- 
terminated without any compassion, after the ex- 
termination of the army of occupation." 

Aguinaldo and Luna were rival chieftains. Aguinaldo rose 



19 

to supreme power over the body of Luna stabbed to death 
with swords upon Aguinaldo's threshold. The people of the 
Philippine Islands never consented to that government. It 
was a pure and simple military domination of Tagalogs. 
The Visayans distrusted and feared them. The people of the 
great Island of Negros raised the American flag, repelled the 
Tagalog invasion and are living to-day in contentment under 
our Government. The tribes of Northern Luzon received us 
with open arms. The ablest and the best of the Tagalogs, 
under the leadership of Arelliano and Torres, repudiated the 
government of Aguinaldo, and came into our lines with their 
adherence and support. The very congress that Aguinaldo 
had gathered at Malolos voted to accept the terms ofl"ered by 
the first Philippine Commission, but he refused to act upon 
their decision. A noble tribute to the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence it would have been indeed to deliver the people of 
Negros and the commerce of Manila and the patient and un- 
consenting millions of all other tribes but the Tagalogs into 
the hands of the assassin Aguinaldo, of the bandit Del Pilar, 
and the authors of the massacre order of February 15, 1899. 

The second specification under the charge of imperialism is, 
in substance, that the exercise of government must be over the 
people of the Philippine Islands as subjects, if not as citizens, 
and that this exercise of power over others will be destructive 
to our national character and institutions. A republic can- 
not have subjects and live, it is said. We have survived the 
government of Louisiana and the Northwest Territory and 
Kew Mexico and Alaska and many other territories in which 
the people of the United States as a whole have governed the 
people of the territory with as much authority and power as 
need be exercised in the Philippine Islands. The true prop- 
osition is the precise reverse of the charge which is made. 
The government of the Philippine Islands will not affect the 
character of our institutions, but the character of our institu- 
tions will determine and mould the government of the Philip- 
pine Islands. To govern as a despot would be fatal to the 
character of a republic, but to govern as Congress always has 
and always will govern in territory outside of the limits of 
the States, in accordance with the spirit of our institutions, 
subject to all the great rules of liberty and right, and respon- 
sible for every act to a great liberty-loving people can but 
extend and strengthen our institutions. 

''You are doing what England did when we rebelled 
against taxation without representation," says Mr. Bryan. 
Strange perversion. It was taxation for the benefit of 
England against which we rebelled. Where has there been a 



20 

dollar taken by taxation for the benefit or use of the United 
States from any island ceded by Spain? There has been no 
taxation in the Philippines or in Porto Rico except the ordi- 
nary taxes which the people have paid for the support of 
their own government, and the expenses of maintaining law 
and order and education among themselves. 

Let me show you what kind of government exists to-day in 
the Philippine Islands. I read from the instructions of the 
President to the present Commission, which entered upon 
legislative power in those islands on the ist of September, 
last: 

•*In all the forms of government and administrative 
provisions which they are authorized to prescribe, the 
commission should bear in mind that the government 
which they are establishing is designed not for our 
satisfaction, or for the expression of our theoretical 
views, but for the happiness, peace and prosperity of 
the people of the Philippine Islands, and the measures 
adopted should be made to conform to their customs, 
their habits, and even their prejudices, to the fullest 
extent consistent with the accomplishment of the in- 
dispensable requisites of just and effective govern- 
ment. 

*' The many different degrees of civilization and 
varieties of custom and capacity among the people of 
the different islands preclude very definite instruction 
as to the part which the people shall take in the selec- 
tion of their own officers ; but these general rules are 
to be observed : That in all cases the municipal 
officers, who administer the local affairs of the people,, 
are to be selected by the people, and that wherever 
officers of more extended jurisdiction are to be selected 
in any way, natives of the islands are to be preferred, 
and if they can be found competent and willing to 
perform the duties, they are to receive the offices in 
preference to any others. 

^' In the constitution of departmental or provincial 
governments, they will give especial attention to the 
existing government of the Island of Negros, con- 
stituted, with the approval of the people of that 
island, under the order of the military governor of 
July 22, 1899, and after verifying, so far as may be 
practicable, the reports of the successful working of 
that government, they will be guided by the experience 
thus acquired, so far as it may be applicable to the 
condition existing in other portions of the Philip- 
pines. 



21 

" The Central Government of the islands, fol- 
lowing the example of the distribution of the powers 
between the States and the National Government 
of the United States, shall have no direct admin- 
istration except of matters of purely general concern, 
and shall have only such supervision and control over 
local governments as may be necessary to secure and 
enforce faithful and efficient administration by local 
officers. 

** Upon. every division and branch of the government 
of the Philippines, must be imposed these inviolable 
rules : 

** That no person shall be deprived of life, liberty 
or property without due process of law; that private 
property shall not be taken for public use without just 
compensation j that in all criminal prosecutions the 
accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public 
trial, to be informed of the nature and cause of the ac- 
cusation, to be confronted with the witnesses against 
him, to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses 
in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for 
his defense; that excessive bail shall not be required, 
nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual 
punishment inflicted; that no person shall be put twice 
in jeopardy for the same offense, or be compelled in 
any criminal case to be a witness against himself; 
that the right to be secure against unreasonable searches 
and seizures shall not be violated'; that neither slavery 
nor involuntary servitude shall exist except as a pun- 
ishment for crime ; that no bill of attainder, or ex- 
post-facto law shall be passed ; that no law shall be 
passed abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, 
or the rights of the people to peaceably assemble and 
petition the Government for a redress of grievances; 
that no law shall be made respecting an establishment 
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, 
and that the free exercise and enjoyment of religious 
profession and worship without discrimination or pref- 
erence shall forever be allowed. 

**The articles of capitulation of the city of Manila 
on the 13th day of August, 1898, concluded with these 
words : 

***This city, its inhabitants, its churches and re- 
ligious worship, its educational establishments, and 
its private property of all descriptions, are placed 
under the special safeguard of the faith and honor of 
the American armv.' 



22 

*' I believe that this pledge has been faithfully kept. 
As high and sacred an obligation rests upon the Govern- 
ment of the United States to give protection for prop- 
erty and life, civil and religious freedom, and wise, 
firm and unselfish guidance in the paths of peace and 
prosperity to all the people of the Philippine Islands. 
I charge this commission to labor for the full perform- 
ance of this obligation, which concerns the honor and 
conscience of their country, in the firm hope that 
through their labors all the inhabitants of the Philippine 
Islands may come to look back with gratitude to the 
day when God gave victory to American arms at Manila 
and set their land under the sovereignty and the pro- 
tection of the people of the United States. 

"William McKiNLEY." 

Is that imperialism? Will giving that kind of government 
to these poor people who have suffered so long under Spanish 
tyranny degrade the character of this republic ? No. The 
party which governs the city of New York, the party which 
governs Mississippi and North Carolina, with their class of 
hereditary voters, may distrust its capacity to maintain its 
virtue while it governs others, but American love of liberty 
and justice will be as living a force in those islands of the 
sea as it has been through all the years on the Atlantic and 
the Lakes and the plains of our own land. The doing of justice 
to these wards of our nation, and the leading of their steps 
along the pathway of liberty and progress will bring not in- 
jury but the strength and benefit which always comes from 
unselfish effort for the good of others. 

Our opponents will not believe any of the American officers, 
civil or military, in the Philippine Islands, or all of them 
put together, when they tell us that the great mass of the 
people in those Islands are favorable to American rather than 
to Tagalog rule. 

Let me give you another bit of testimony from a Tagalog 
pen. It is a letter from a Tagalog officer to Sandico, Colonel 
and Chief of Staff, Aguinaldo's Secretary of Interior and 
chief lieutenant : 

" Sr. Teodoro Sandico, Colonel, 

" First Military Chief of Staff in Santo Domingo. 
" My Respected Chief and dear brother : 

*' I have received your respected order, regarding the 
organization of the '■ Comite ' in the towns of Zara- 
gosa, Aliaga and Licab ; from the movements and 
actions of these towns, I don't believe it possible to 



23 

organize immediately. Before we can, it will be 
necessary that four or five lives be taken in each town. 
I believe that what ought to be done to those towns is 
to make a new conquest of them, especially the town 
of San Juan de Guimba ; it is difficult there to set 
straight the Tagalos and Ilocanos of importance, as 
they are badly inclined and they care to do nothing 
but pervert our soldiers. This is what I am able to in- 
form you in fulfillment of the respected order of the 
Chief. God guard you many years, 

*' San Cristobal, 3rd August, 1900. C. Gonzales." 

Four or five lives in each town means that the support of 
these people to the Tagalog cause shall be procured through 
the terror produced by that number of assassinations. With 
that accomplished, Tagalog rule in the provinces of Ilocanos 
would forthwith assume those just powers which are derived 
from the consent of the governed. 

You have been told that the present activity of guerrillas in 
the Philippine Islands, who, from their hiding places in the 
mountains, ambush and murder our troops and the friendly 
natives, is the result, under express and explicit orders from 
Aguinaldo, of a desire to maintain a show of resistance, 
in the hope of Mr. Bryan's election, and for the purpose 
of producing an effect upon the people of the United 
States which will promote that election. General MacArthur 
has reported this. Judge Taft has reported it. General 
Wright, sturdy Democrat of Tennessee, has reported it. The 
whole Philippine Commission has reported it. But, of course, 
the opposition will not believe them. They are Americans. 
Let me give you testimony that even they will not dispute ! 

GENERAL ORDER TO THE PHILIPPINE 
ARMY, No. 202. 
''As I have in previous letters directed that all 
** Commanders of Guerrillas are free to attack any de- 
** tachment or post of the enemy, and continually 
** molest the same : I reiterate the order the more 
** strongly, because its fulfillment just now is very 
** necessary for the advantage of the cause of inde- 
** pendence of the Philippines in the approaching 
*' Presidential election in the United States of America, 
** which takes place in the early part of the coming 
*' month of September of the present year; on account 
*' of which, it is imperative that before that day comes, 
*' that is to say, during the months of June, July and 
*' August, we give such hard knocks to the Americans 



24 

^' that they will resound in our favor in all parts, and 
** set in motion the fall of the Imperialist party, which 
'* is trying to enslave us. 
" Date, 27th of June, 1900. 

** Signed by the Captain-General, 

"E. Aguinaldo.'* 

Under that order, and others like it, the guerrillas of the 
Philippines killed on the 4th of September private David 
Allen, bricklayer, of Tyrone, Pennsylvania, on the 13th of 
September private William Andrews, painter of Atlanta, 
Georgia, on the 21st of July, corporal Warren Billman, 
farmer of New Marion, Indiana, on the 19th of July sergeant 
Albert Cockayne, steam-fitter of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on 
the 24th of August private William Christman, machinist of 
Hartford, Connecticut, and down to the 15th of October 84 
others — 89 officers and men, and they grievously wounded 
many more — all without purpose or reason or expectation of 
benefit, except upon the hopes held out to them by the Kansas 
City platform and the belief that it was important to Mr. 
Bryan's cause that America should seem unsuccessful in the 
Philippines. 

How truly these murdered countrymen of ours could have 
echoed Lawton's words : 

** I would to God that the truth of this whole Philip- 
pine situation could be known to everyone in America 
as I know it. 

'* If the real history, inspirations and conditions of 
this insurrection, and the influences, local and external, 
that now encourage the enemy, as well as the actual 
possibilities of these islands and peoples and their re- 
lations to this great East, could be understood at home, 
we would hear no more talk of unjust * shooting of 
government ' into the Filipinos, or of hauling down 
our flag in the Philippines. 

^' If the so-called anti-imperialists would honestly as- 
certain the truth on the ground and not in distant 
America, they, whom I believe to be honest men and 
misinformed, would be convinced of the error of their 
statements and conclusions and of the unfortunate 
effect of their publications here. 

*' If I am shot by a Filipino bullet, it might as well 
come from one of my own men, because I know from 
observations confirmed by captured prisoners that the 
continuance of fighting is chiefly due to reports that 
are sent out from America." 



25 

I will not say that the men who are encouraging the 
Filipino soldiers here are traitors to their country. I do not 
think they know what it is they do. But I will say, and I 
think with justice, that the men who are reviling and be- 
littling America here, and the men who are shooting from 
ambush there, are allies in the same cause, and both are ene- 
mies to the interests and credit of our country. 

In the place of the old motto ** My country, right or 
wrong," we are told that we should adopt that other motto, 
''My country when right, and when wrong to be put right." 
But who is to be judge as between you and your country? Is 
it the full measure of patriotic citizenship to be for your 
country when it agrees with you, and against it when it does 
not? I cannot so estimate the impulses of loyalty. In the 
great tribunal of public opinion I shall strive always to bring 
my countrymen to the adoption of my views, but if their 
judgment, differing from mine, becomes the basis of national 
action and the cause of national conflict, I can find no satis- 
faction in the triumph of her foe; neither logic nor pride of 
opinion will soften the pain with which I greet the death of 
her defenders ; with all my heart and soul and hopes and 
prayers I am always for my country and her victory, and in 
no other spirit do I see aught but discord, the dissolution of 
allegiance and the death of loyalty. 

It is said that we have not acted fairly towards the people 
of Porto Rico. The charge has no foundation, unless in igno- 
rance or malice. We have given to the people of Porto Rico 
the most munificent gift ever conferred upon one people by 
another — the free markets of the United States. The Presi- 
dent recommended that the customs duties between the 
United States and Porto Rico should be removed, and Con- 
gress passed a law providing for their removal. It provided 
for the immediate removal of 85 per cent of the duties under 
the Din gley Tariff, and for the removal of the remaining 15 
per cent whenever the people of Porto Rico should be able by 
any other form of taxation to pay for the support of their own 
government, with the proviso that at the end of two years 
this remnant of duties should cease absolutely, whether the 
Porto Ricans supported their own government or not. We 
receive none of the duties. The duties collected at both ends 
of the line are paid into the treasury of the island. I know 
of no reason why the Porto Ricans should not pay for their 
own courts and schools and police. It is much better for 
them than to be treated as paupers. They do not complain 
of it ! They have no right to complain of it ! The reason 
why this temporary provision for the payment of their ex- 



26 

penses is made is that they have no reasonable and fair tax 
laws, and it is necessary to devise new and fair laws in the 
place of the oppressive and unreasonable old Spanish laws 
which were in existence. It takes time to change a system of 
taxation ! It affects every industry and every interest in the 
country ! Time had to be taken for the people of Porto Rico 
to be heard upon the kind and the amounts of taxation to be 
levied upon the different classes of property and of industry 
in their island. We have got the best men we could find in 
the country there helping them to devise a good tax law, and 
when it has been devised and adopted by their legislature, 
which will be elected next month, then it will take more time 
to impose the taxes and realize money upon them, in the 
meantime their means of supporting their government is this 
temporary 15 per cent of the Dingley duties which was left 
on by Congress for not exceeding two years for that express 
purpose. 

Mr. Bryan says that trusts have grown to an unprecedented 
degree during the present Administration. Yes, the great 
industrial enterprises which are opening the whole world to 
American markets, which are sending near five hundred mil- 
lions of American manufactures abroad during this year, to 
pay the wages and swell the savings bank accounts of Ameri- 
can laborers, have grown beyond precedence. Some of them 
are monopolies and ought to be suppressed. Most of them 
have no element of monopoly whatever except that which 
comes from selling cheaper than other competitors, and that 
is not monopoly but competition. Most of them are con- 
ducting the business which is free to any one on earth who 
has the intelligence and the skill to conduct a manufacture. 
Would he destroy them all ? Would he close all the furnaces 
and all the factories and all the mines because he sees no 
difference between those enterprises which are, and those 
which are not, monopolies, or would he consent that some 
one should sit down and scrutinize the different enterprises 
and ascertain which are good and which are bad and at- 
tack only the bad? He has been trying to turn what 
he calls ''The Starch Trust" out of Nebraska. There 
can no more be a monopoly in the manufacture of starch 
than there can be a monopoly in the consumption of corn. 
Nobody can make starch who does not know how, and any one 
can make starch who knows how and can get corn to make it 
with. The trouble with Mr. Bryan's treatment of trusts is 
that he treats them not as a matter of business, but as a mat- 
ter of politics, and he thinks that a general and indiscrimi- 
nate denunciation of these great industrial enterprises which 



are employing the labor and increasing the wealth of 
America is a good campaign cry. 

He has proposed two remedies for trusts ; one is an amend- 
ment to the Constitution of the United States placing the 
control of them in the Federal Government; the other is a law 
forbidding any business concern manufacturing in one State 
from selling or transacting any business connected therewith 
in another State without a license from authorities in 
Washington. Shade of Jefferson ! What doctrines are these 
to be preached in thy name? This is ^^Imperialism" indeed. 
This would concentrate in the government at Washington 
entire and absolute control over every business interest in the 
country, for no business above the dignity of the retail store 
is confined within the limits of any State. The summary 
judgment of the officer who must issue or withhold the license 
would constitute a power for favoritism and oppression 
appalling to contemplate. Such destruction of State rights, 
such centering of power in the Federal Government, has never 
before been suggested. Coming from the Democratic party 
it is grotesque and absurd. No party will ever seriously 
consider it. It is but the crude and inconsiderate suggestion 
of a campaign orator designed for oratorical uses only. 

It is charged that the present Administration is in favor of 
increasing the regular army, and this is said to be miliiarism, 
a. crime that endangers the liberty of the republic. It is said 
that the President, in his message to Congress in the fall of 
1898, asked that the number be fixed at one hundred thou- 
sand (100,000). That was a reduction, no*, an increase. On 
the ist of September, 1898, we had 272,000 soldiers under 
arms — 56,000 regulars and 216,000 volunteers. When the 
President's message was sent to Congress the protocol had 
been signed, but the treaty had not been signed, peace had 
not been made, Spain had not evacuated Cuba, a hostile 
army surrounded our troops in Manila. It would have been 
folly to disband our army as the preliminary to negotiations, 
and the President could have retained that entire army until 
after the ratification of the treaty of peace in April, 1899. 
The volunteers were anxious and insistent upon being per- 
mitted to return to their homes, and what the President 
asked of Congress was to authorize the enlistment of 
44,000 in the regular army to take the place of 216,000 volun- 
teers discharged; that his advice was not unreasonable is 
shown by the fact that Congress at that vhry session, by the 
votes of both parties, authorized an army of the precise num- 
ber for which the President called, making it 65,000 regulars 
and 35,000 new volunteers. 



28 

What is the regular army of the United States ? It is abody 
of American citizens provided for by the Constitution, and 
organized in the year 1789 under the first Presidency of 
George Washington. Its duty is to man the sea-coast fortifi- 
cations, which protect our harbors and great cities against 
hostile attack, and to garrison the military posts along our 
frontiers, and at such Strategic points in the country as Con- 
gress determines to be suitable; to be always ready to fight 
for their country in any sudden emergency which may come 
upon us before there is time to raise a volunteer force, and 
during the time while such a force is being raised; to constantly 
study, experiment upon, and exercise with all the improve- 
ments in military science, both in arms, ammunition, equip- 
ment, supplies, sanitation, transportation, drill and tactics; 
to furnish a nucleus of officers and men thoroughly familiar 
with the business, for the strengthening and more ready in- 
struction of a volunteer army whenever that shall become 
necessary. The kind of emergency which the regular army 
has to meet is well illustrated by recent events in China. Far 
from us as China is our troops were sent there and did their 
business, and are coming away again, in less time than it 
would have been possible to raise and equip and prepare a 
single regiment of volunteers. This was because the troops 
and the transports and material were ready to move on the 
instant. 

The authorized number of the regular army to-day is 65,000, 
but on the 30th of June next it will, unless there be further 
legislation in the meantime, be reduced to 27,500, substan- 
tially the number at which it has stood for the past twenty- 
seven years ; but as the country has grown in its population 
and its multitude of interests, as our sea-coast fortifications 
have been increased, under the leadership of Samuel J. Til- 
den, and upon plans prepared by the first Administration of 
Cleveland, as the art of war has become more scientific and 
complicated, more men are necessary to perform the same 
duties than were able to perform them years ago. The army 
of 27,500 is only about one-third as large in proportion to 
our population as our army was thirty years ago. The ques- 
tion how large the army should be is a simple business ques- 
tion as to how many men are necessary to perform certain 
specific duties. The last Congress fixed upon 100,000 in view 
of the conditions then existing. The next session of Con- 
gress will probably determine how many are requisite under 
the conditions then existing. Specially belligerent people 
will probably ask for too many ; specially economical Con- 
gressmen will probably insist upon too few. I think we can 
assume that about the right conclusion will be reached. 



29 

Now does any sane American honestly believe that this 
threatens the liberties or the institutions of our country? 
Why, President McKinley»had 272,000 men in arms at the 
close of the Spanish war. Grant had an army of 1,052,000 
on the 30th of April, 1865, and they melted away into the 
peaceable body of the people like snowflakes in May. But 
these are volunteers, it will be said. Well, all the soldiers of 
the regular army are volunteers. Never in the history of the 
army has there been a man drafted or forced into it against 
his will. Their term of enlistment is but three years, and 
at the end of that time they go back to the occupations of 
civil life. They are all Americans. They are intelligent 
Americans. None are admitted who cannot read and write. 
They are sound, wholesome Americans, of good habits and 
regular lives, for none are admitted who are not in perfect heatlh. 
Nineteen thousand five hundred and forty-nine men were 
enlisted in the year ending the 30th of last June to take the 
place of those whose terms had expired, and those 19,549 
were selected out of 89,243 applicants — 19,549 accepted and 
69,694 rejected as not up to the standard intellectually or 
physically. They all swear allegiance, not to a Monarch or a 
President, but to the United States of America. They, like the 
volunteer, come from American homes. The flag of their 
country floats always over them. They are surrounded by 
the memories and the traditions of comrades who have died 
for it. They breathe the atmosphere of probity and self- 
respect ; for I call you all to witness that wherever in all its 
history the American Army has gone, whether in the States 
or the Territories, whether in Mexico or Cuba, or Porto Rico, 
or the Philippines or China, there the American people have 
relied with confidence and with reason upon an administra- 
tion, both military and civil, marked by integrity and honor. 
They are conspicuous in the arts of peace. Where they go 
law and order and justice and charity and education and 
religion follow. They are not only enduring under hardship 
and brave in danger, but they are patient under provocation 
and magnanimous after victory. During these last years in 
the Spanish Islands they have been administering the civil 
law with justice and moderation. They have been feeding 
the hungry and clothing the naked and protecting the weak 
and cleaning the foul cities and establishing hospitals and 
organizing and opening schools and building roads and en- 
couraging commerce and teaching people how to take the 
first steps in self-government with cheerful industry and 
zeal. I challenge their detractors to say whether, in any 



30 

community where they have been, in all the years of the 
regular army, the officers and men have not always borne 
themselves as simple, unassuming, unpretentious American 
citizens. I challenge them to point to a single act of oppres- 
sion, in all these one hundred and eleven years, to a single 
act of disloyalty on the part of the regular army, to the 
supremacy of civil law and the principles of our free con- 
stitutional government. 

*^I believe," says Mr. Bryan, at New York, *'that one of 
the reasons that they want a large army is to build a fort in 
this city and use the army to suppress by force that discon- 
tent that ought to be cured by legislation." What warrant 
has he for that belief? When or by whom has such a thing 
been attempted? Does he not know that it is expressly for- 
bidden by the statutes of the United States? Does he not 
know that there is a constant effort on the part of the 
War Deparment to prevent establishing army posts and 
a constant pressure by the people of our cities to se- 
cure their establishment? Let him undertake to secure 
the removal of Fort Crook from the city of Omaha and 
see what response he would receive from its people. Let 
him ask why Iowa, just eastward of him, obtained the passage 
of a bill by Congress at the last session for the establishment 
of a post at Des Moines. Let him inquire why Tacoma and 
Seattle are contending as to which city shall have the estab- 
lishment of a new post now; why the people of Prescott, 
Arizona, are protesting against the removal of Fort Whipple; 
why the representatives of Texas are urging the increase of 
the garrison at Fort Sam Houston ; why the people of At- 
lanta are sending delegations to secure headquarters there; 
and he will learn that the people of the United States, in- 
stead of fearing, desire, the establishment of army posts in 
their neighborhoods because they know that this pretended 
apprehension is but the idle vaporing of a campaign orator. 

*' The growing practice of using the army to repress labor," 
says Mr. Bryan. When and where has the army been used 
to repress labor? Never anywhere. Twice only in the past 
twenty years it has been used in any domestic affair. Once 
in 1896 when a Democratic President, Mr. Cleveland, sent 
troops to Chicago to protect the mails, and again in 1899, 
when, upon a formal requisition by the Democratic Governor 
of Idaho, certifying in accordance with the constitution and 
the laws, that insurrection existed, which the State author- 
ities were unable to repress, the President, in the perform- 
ance of his constitutional duty, sent 653 officers and men 
into the Coeur D'Alene to aid the civil officers of the State to 
protect life and property. 



31 

''They are idlers," says Mr. Bryan. The records of the 
War DepartmeDt show that since the organization of the 
regular army it has fought 2,545 separate engagements. In 
the War of 1812, in the Mexican War, m the Civil War, in 
the Indian Wars, in the Spanish War, in the Philippine War, 
it has endured hardships and privations and wounds and 
death. It has been the safeguard and protection of the set- 
tlers as they spread out over the West. Its men have fainted 
under the torrid heats of summer, and frozen under the bitter 
cold of winter, and nowhere have they faltered or been faith- 
less to their trust. It has given to the country Grant and 
Sherman and Sheridan and Thomas and Meade and Hancock. 
It has given to our later memories Lawton and Liscum and 
Riley. It did not idle in Mexico. It did not idle when 
the Union was threatened. It never idled on the plains 
when the frontier settlements were to be rescued from sav- 
age foes. There was no idleness at San Juan and El Caney. 
There was no idleness in Lawton's swift, resistless march 
that broke the power of Tagalog rule in Luzon. Did Liscum 
idle before the walls of Tien-tsin? Did Riley upon the walls 
of Peking? The women of the legations did not deem Chaf- 
fee and his batallions idle when they wept over their children 
in the joy of rescue. Real soldiers who have learned their 
business and attend to il, in peace and in war, work hard, 
work long, work early and work late. 

Upon the undisputable proof of more than a century's faith- 
ful service, the American soldier is not a danger to liberty 
and law and peace, but their defender. He has earned honor 
and confidence and gratitude from the American people, and 
I challenge the just judgment of the people as between him 
and the men who, for their own selfish purpose, are aspersing 
and maligning him while in distant lands he is braving hard- 
ship and disease and wounds and death in defense of our 
country's flag. 

Are our opponents sincere? Is Mr. Bryan, who four years 
ago made his campaign upon the money issue and talked of 
nothing but money, and so eloquently bewailed the empty 
dinner pail, really sincere in pronouncing the full dinner pail 
to be a sordid issue? Is the party which is governing and 
avows its intention to still govern ten millions of black citi- 
zens in the South, without their consent, whether by law or 
fraud or force, really disturbed about imperialism and the 
Declaration of Independence? Was that distinguished com- 
pany which gathered in the Louis XIV room of the Hoffman 
House and ate their twenty-dollar dinner, with Mayor Van 
Wyck, of the Ice Trust, as presiding officer, and Richard 



32 

4 

Croker, of the Ice Trust, as presiding genius, and Chairman 
of the Democratic National Committee, Jones, of the Cotton 
Bale Trust, as the director of the campaign — were they 
really solicitous about the evils of trusts and agonizing for 
thedelivery of their countrymen from their effects? 

What evidence have these men given of capacity to 
govern? What warrant have we but their own promises that 
the men who would constitute the next administration, if the 
change be made, are competent to perform the great and 
difficult duties of government? What proof has their chosen 
leader ever given of capacity in public affairs? He has 
eloquently expounded many theories. Has any theory of his 
which has come to the test ever proved to be right? He 
eloquently denounced a protective tariff. Was he right? 
He eloquently declared that if the mints were not immedi- 
ately opened to the free and unlimited coinage of silver, 
ruin and desolation would be the fate of America during the 
four years now closing. Was he right? During all its his- 
tory the American people has selected for its Presidents men 
of tried and proved public service, whose capacity for safe, 
conservative and experienced administration had been dem- 
onstrated to the knowledge of all the people. Now they are 
asked to put the reins of government and all the vast inter- 
ests upon which our happiness depends, in the hands of a 
man who never did anything but talk, and never was right in 
anything that he said. 

When, during all the years that Mr. Bryan has been a 
leader of opinion, has he lifted a hand to aid his country in 
any one of the hard tasks with which it has been grappling? 
When has there been one word of praise or credit for America 
or American institutions, or American government, or for any 
of the men who represent the dignity of the people by the 
people's choice? When has there been from him aught but 
depreciation and disparagement and discredit for everything 
that is, and everything that is done in our country? When 
has there come from him one word of encouragement or hope, 
one word to cheer the path of labor, to fire the ambition of 
youth, to confirm or to increase the American people's confi- 
dence in their institutions and loyalty to their flag ? 

Every business is best managed by its friends, every under- 
taking is best prosecuted by those who have faith in it. Is 
it not the wisest course of the American people to leave the 
conduct of their affairs in the hands of those who believe 
that this is not the worst, but the best government on earth ; 
that it is not the most miserable, but the most happy of 
lands ; that we have before us not the darkest, but the most 



33 

brilliant and glorious future of all the peoples who inhabit the 
earth? 

To whom is the American people expected to commit the 
momentous interests which it is asked to take away from 
President McKinley, but to a motley and incongruous crowd 
gathered from three parties, agreeing upon no single principle 
or policy except the free coinage of silver, and held together 
only for campaign purposes, by sympathy of common detrac- 
tion against all the glorious achievements of American progress 
under both political parties during the past generation? They 
are peddlers of political discontent who, with shifty eyes for 
the prejudices of each coramrmity, draw from their pack, anti- 
trust arguments for expansionists, anti-expansion arguments 
for sound money men, and anti-gold arguments for silver 
men; and always and everywhere seeking to stir up bitter- 
ness and hatred by Americans against Americans. They 
seek to substitute for the old and happily-ended conflict of 
section against section, a new conflict of class against class. 
They strike at the root of free government, with the delusive 
promises of the demagogue, leading the poor and the unfor- 
tunate to look to government rather than to intelligence and 
thrift to make them rich and strong. They strike at the life 
of enterprise by challenging the right of the successful to the 
fruits of enterprise. The strength of free institutions in 
America has rested for all these centuries past upon the fact 
that there were no classes in America; that all men were 
equal before the law — equal in the rights of citizenship, 
equal in the dignity of manhood, unfettered in the pursuit 
of limitless opportunity; that the poor and humble to-day, 
having the qualities of intelligence and enterprise, are the 
rich and powerful to-morrow; that the rich and powerful 
to-day, lacking these qualities, are the poor and humble to- 
morrow; that all over the land the poorest workingmen who 
may no longer seek to change their own condition are look- 
ing with pride and hope upon their boys starting out upon 
their careers with advantages their fathers never had, with open 
pathways to distinction and wealth. With these conditions, 
which have always existed, and which exist to-day, there is 
no such thing as class. No gulf divides American citizens 
from each other. There is but one ideal, one title of honor, of 
pride and of mutual respect — the ideal and the title of Ameri- 
can citizenship. All this these men would destroy in order 
that they may ride into power as the governors of an unhappy 
and discordant people. 



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